Nor were the authors of their failed cap-and-trade bill, Henry Waxman or Ed Markey.
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At times he has argued powerfully in favour of a cap-and-trade bill to moderate climate change.
For example, House Democrats recently passed a cap-and-trade bill that would raise energy prices.
Broad support from the voters is something that both the health bill and the cap-and-trade bill clearly lack.
The centrepiece of his programme was to be a cap-and-trade bill.
The only time Congress even considered imposing GHG performance standards on power plants was during the debate on the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.
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As for energy, the Senate legislation bears little resemblance to the cap-and-trade bill steered through the House last year by Henry Waxman and Edward Markey.
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That is why chances for passing a cap-and-trade bill this year are poor, and you are not likely to hear Democratic candidates talk much about it.
Even before the setback in Massachusetts, Mr Obama saw this as one way to cut carbon emissions if the Senate failed to pass a cap-and-trade bill.
"We're challenging Waxman-Markey's cap-and-trade bill, not the need for a legislative response to climate change, " says Karen Harbert, head of the Chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy.
Putting a price on carbon dioxide, as the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House in June would do, would make coal more expensive to burn and gas relatively cheaper.
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The rapid decline in U.S. emissions has taken some pressure off the White House after the 2010 failure of a cap-and-trade bill meant to put a price on carbon emissions.
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But the House of Representatives has produced a cap-and-trade bill that is protectionist, riddled with exemptions and which gives away the permits that are supposed to force carbon-emitters to change their ways.
He and Independent Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman had worked hard to push a global climate crisis-premised 2010 carbon cap-and-trade bill, only to see its prospects for passage swept away in a Republican House cleaning.
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This is a big year for lobbying, and natural gas producers could indeed benefit from a cap-and-trade bill because it would create an incentive to rely less on electricity generated by traditional coal-fired power plants.
The White House even fought to the bitter end for a cap-and-trade bill that the House passed and would have imposed higher costs for electric power, transportation, manufacturing and most goods and services as this tax flowed down the energy chain.
Next, a little refreshing honesty: in 2009, the House of Representatives passed a cap-and-trade bill (which the Senate did not) commanding that the average american 38 years from now be allowed the carbon dioxide emissions of the average citizen in 1867.
Joe Manchin, then the popular Democratic governor of West Virginia, disavowed Mr Obama's ideas about health-care reform and global warming going so far as to run a commercial in which he fired a bullet through the cap-and-trade bill supported by Democrats in Congress to secure a seat in the Senate last year.
If the American Senate were to pass a climate bill that put a significant cost on carbon, and thus provided cuts of the same size as those expected under the cap-and-trade bill which passed the House of Representatives last year, America would be widely seen as having raised the stakes with a commitment to a reduction of just under 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
The "Climategate" scandal had been exposed in global media outlets just weeks before, and a December defeat of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's proposed cap-and-trade legislation as a job-killing bill didn't help to brighten attendee moods much either.
Media reports indicate that you may frame climate change as a national security issue to prod Congress into passing cap-and-trade legislation, like the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House last June.
The New York Times bluntly reported on what's likely driving some businesses in the Northeast and West to break with cap-and-trade skeptics like the Chamber and sing the bill's praises.
President Obama has supported carbon controls, backing a 2009 House bill that relied on cap-and-trade.
The bill calls for a cap-and-trade system designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 66% by the year 2050, as has been touted by its supporters.
Critics of the Obama Administration have accused the president of abandoning climate change after the cap and trade bill he supported stalled in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate.
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But the Lieberman-Warner bill isn't the only "cap-and-trade" proposal floating around on Capitol Hill these days, so why is it making waves?
In 2008 another piece of major legislation was introduced: the Lieberman-Warner bill, which would implement a nationwide cap-and-trade program on carbon emissions.
The United States House of Representatives recently passed the Waxman-Markey Bill, setting an emissions reduction target and introducing a cap and trade scheme.
An energy bill passed last year by the House of Representatives included a controversial cap-and-trade system.
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